Addressable TV took another step forward yesterday as Google announced a deal with satellite TV provider DirectTV. Julie Boorstin of CNBC writes about the new partnership: "And this could really transform the TV ad business by enabling demographic targeting on a national scale. Marketers have been shifting ad spending away from TV to the web because its much easier to narrowly target online ads and measure their success. The growth of Google TV provides more reason to look to cable." And these are just the initial baby steps. Read more.

Those Risky Ad Exchanges

AdSafe Media brings its research lens to ad exchanges for its second quarter report. A sample data nugget: "Inventory transparency is the lowest on Ad Exchanges. Ad Exchanges served 64.4%; IAB Category I inventory (with full transparency regarding referring URL), Ad Networks served 82.6% and Publishers directly served 97.4%." Read the press release (PDF).Download the report (sign-up required).

Facebook + AOL = Ad Love

According to Claire Atkinson, Aol and Facebook are talking about some sort of crazy hookup. Atkinson writes, "The two companies have been talking for several months about a partnership that would allow Facebook to tap AOL's mojo in selling online ads, according to three separate sources." Three's a charm! Read more.

Optimizing At The Agency's Peril

Paul DeBraccio of site rep firm Interevco says on min Online that the optimization of digital ad campaigns by agencies - i.e. the culling of underforming sites - is every digital publishers worst nightmare. But: "A little known fact is that optimization costs the agencies money, too, and that cost is increasing more and more these days, and most media directors dread this necessary and tedious task." Read about the costs.

Mouse Intent

Computer scientists Eugene Agichtein and Qi Guo of Emory University say that they have developed an online tool to detect intent from the actions of a mouse - the one connected to your computer. Agichtein says, “We used controlled experiments to develop a model for the way people use a computer mouse when they plan to make a purchase." Read more
(source: @jonathanmendez)

The Privacy Payoff

Stephen Baker postulates on his personal blog that consumer privacy will create all new marketing opportunities and then gives examples of how a couple of money-making, privacy-related business models could evolve. But, he concludes, "Turning privacy policies into marketing opportunities seems like a no-brainer. Smart filters will sell. But given the power of the free and public data economy, I suspect the privacy-wing will remain a niche market. In BusinessWeek lingo, a six-column story, not a cover." Read more.

BT And Transparency

On the Privacy Choice blog, Jim Brock says that there needs to be more transparency in behavioral targeting and notes about AddThis: "For publishers signing up today, there’s no reference to behavioral data collection in the signup process for the AddThis widget." Read more.

DOOH For Q2

DOOH strategy provider Adcentricity released its Digital Out-Of-Home (DOOH) for Q2 report. According to Katy Bachmann of Mediaweek, "Some (vertical) ad categories are still hesitant to try out the [DOOH] medium. 'Food, beverage and candy categories are still kicking the tires,' [Adcentricity CEO Rob Gorrie] said. 'I don't expect big spenders like Coca Cola and Procter & Gamble to come in until 2011.'" Read more on Mediaweek. Download the report (sign-up required).

1 Take: The Early-Stage, Funding Process

From the world of venture capital, Foundry Group's Seth Levine talks about how the germ of an idea can become a company through the collaboration of the entrepreneur and the VC/angel - in this case, he identifies his work with Trada and its founder Niel Robertson. Levine writes of his group's process, "We like to be involved early (in this case before an idea for a business even existed) and we think of our angel investments as a down payment on a subsequent investment in the business (we’ realize that we need to give early businesses some time to develop)." Read more.

2 Comments

Re: AdSafe findings... Does anyone else think these results are skewed? I find it difficult to believe nearly half of all impressions were served via exchanges and DSP's... This must be a factor of where AdSafe clients are allocating spend, as opposed to the industry at large.

I suspect these results will look different next quarter with Google AdEx blocking ad verification technologies. Perhaps this move is in some way related to AdSafe's write-up on the opacity and brand-risk to be found on the exchanges.

"49% of traffic was served via Ad Exchanges / Real-Time-Bidding Platforms /
Demand Side Platforms, an upward trend from last quarter’s 47% share. 33% was
served via Ad Networks and 18% was served directly via Publishers."

"Highest Risk Inventory is served via Ad Exchanges. 16.9% of inventory served by Ad
Exchanges was High Risk for advertising (with an AdSafe Rating below 250), 6.3% of
inventory served via Ad Networks was High Risk and 3.8% of inventory served directly
via Publishers was High Risk.
• Inventory transparency is the lowest on Ad Exchanges. Ad Exchanges served 64.4%
IAB Category I inventory (with full transparency regarding referring URL), Ad Networks
served 82.6% and Publishers directly served 97.4%."

Agreed, there's no way this stat is true en masse. It's got to be just the inventory that Adsafe runs on which makes sense....why would you need adsafe on more premium networks? You only need it when you are bidding into exchanges when you don't know where you will show up.